undecided, for want of a right reason constituted by Nature; so is
it also in all debates of what kind soever: and when men that think
themselves wiser than all others clamour and demand right reason for
judge, yet seek no more but that things should be determined by no
other men's reason but their own, it is as intolerable in the
society of men, as it is in play after trump is turned to use for
trump on every occasion that suit whereof they have most in their
hand. For they do nothing else, that will have every of their
passions, as it comes to bear sway in them, to be taken for right
reason, and that in their own controversies: bewraying their want of
right reason by the claim they lay to it.

  The use and end of reason is not the finding of the sum and truth of
one, or a few consequences, remote from the first definitions and
settled significations of names; but to begin at these, and proceed
from one consequence to another. For there can be no certainty of
the last conclusion without a certainty of all those affirmations
and negations on which it was grounded and inferred. As when a
master of a family, in taking an account, casteth up the sums of all
the bills of expense into one sum; and not regarding how each bill
is summed up, by those that give them in account, nor what it is he
pays for, he advantages himself no more than if he allowed the account
in gross, trusting to every of the accountant's skill and honesty:
so also in reasoning of all other things, he that takes up conclusions
on the trust of authors, and doth not fetch them from the first
items in every reckoning (which are the significations of names
settled by definitions), loses his labour, and does not know anything,
but only believeth.

  When a man reckons without the use of words, which may be done in
particular things, as when upon the sight of any one thing, we
conjecture what was likely to have preceded, or is likely to follow
upon it; if that which he thought likely to follow follows not, or
that which he thought likely to have preceded it hath not preceded it,
this is called error; to which even the most prudent men are
subject. But when we reason in words of general signification, and
fall upon a general inference which is false; though it be commonly
called error, it is indeed an absurdity, or senseless speech. For
error is but a deception, in presuming that somewhat is past, or to
come; of which, though it were not past, or not to come, yet there was
no impossibility discoverable. But when we make a general assertion,
unless it be a true one, the possibility of it is inconceivable. And
words whereby we conceive nothing but the sound are those we call
absurd, insignificant, and nonsense. And therefore if a man should
talk to me of a round quadrangle; or accidents of bread in cheese;
or immaterial substances; or of a free subject; a free will; or any
free but free from being hindered by opposition; I should not say he
were in an error, but that his words were without meaning; that is
to say, absurd.

  I have said before, in the second chapter, that a man did excel
all other animals in this faculty, that when he conceived anything
whatsoever, he was apt to enquire the consequences of it, and what
effects he could do with it. And now I add this other degree of the
same excellence, that he can by words reduce the consequences he finds
to general rules, called theorems, or aphorisms; that is, he can
reason, or reckon, not only in number, but in all other things whereof
one may be added unto or subtracted from another.

  But this privilege is allayed by another; and that is by the
privilege of absurdity, to which no living creature is subject, but
men only. And of men, those are of all most subject to it that profess
philosophy. For it is most true that Cicero saith of them somewhere;
that there can be nothing so absurd but may be found in the books of
philosophers. And the reason is manifest. For there is not one of them
that begins his ratiocination from the definitions or explications
of the names they are to use; which is a method that hath been used
only in geometry, whose conclusions have thereby been made
indisputable.

  1. The first cause of absurd conclusions I ascribe to the want of
method; in that they begin not their ratiocination from definitions;
that is, from settled significations of their words: as if they
could cast account without knowing the value of the numeral words,
one, two, and three.

  And whereas all bodies enter into account upon diverse
considerations, which I have mentioned in the precedent chapter, these
considerations being diversely named, diverse absurdities proceed from
the confusion and unfit connexion of their names into assertions.
And therefore,

  2. The second cause of absurd assertions, I ascribe to the giving of
names of bodies to accidents; or of accidents to bodies; as they do
that say, faith is infused, or inspired; when nothing can be poured,
or breathed into anything, but body; and that extension is body;
that phantasms are spirits, etc.

  3. The third I ascribe to the giving of the names of the accidents
of bodies without us to the accidents of our own bodies; as they do
that say, the colour is in the body; the sound is in the air, etc.

  4. The fourth, to the giving of the names of bodies to names, or
speeches; as they do that say that there be things universal; that a
living creature is genus, or a general thing, etc.

  5. The fifth, to the giving of the names of accidents to names and
speeches; as they do that say, the nature of a thing is its
definition; a man's command is his will; and the like.